TEMECULA: Annexation supporters rally in Old Town

AARON CLAVERIE - aclaverie@californian.com

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TEMECULA -- "Get on the bus!"

That was the theme, spelled out on the side of a cardboard bus,
of an Old Town rally Saturday in support of the city's bid to annex
thousands of acres of land on its southwestern border, a swath that
includes acreage targeted by Granite Construction for a quarry.

The 5,000 acres eyed by the city also includes the Santa
Margarita Ecological Reserve, a 4,500-acre piece of open space that
has been preserved as a research area by San Diego State
University.

Annexation supporters at the rally said they hope hundreds, if
not thousands, of area residents literally get on buses and motor
to Riverside for a hearing June 4 that will be held by the county's
Local Agency Formation Commission, the body that will rule on
Temecula's request to annex the land.

"We don't have the money to fight a huge company," said Kathleen
Hamilton, one of the organizers of the rally and a member of the
group Save Our Southwest Hills. "The way you fight is by having the
people show what they want."

Saturday's rally -- which featured pro-annexation speakers, a
video slide show, food and entertainment -- was held in The Merc,
the historical mercantile building on Main Street.

Those who attended were encouraged to sign postcards that were
addressed to the commission and they were asked to sign up for one
of the six buses that will be used to take residents to Riverside
for the hearing.

Hamilton said the number of buses is fixed at six due to grad
night festivities on the same day, but she said her group would
welcome someone in Southwest County stepping up and supplying a few
more. She said there also will be a coordinated car-pooling
effort.

In the back room of The Merc, it was standing-room only for a
presentation by Matt Rahn, director of San Diego State's field
station program.

Rahn, using a computer slide show, described how the quarry
would affect the ecologically sensitive reserve.

"This is the largest issue that's ever faced the ecological
reserve," he said, adding that he was particularly concerned about
the degradation of the area's air quality that he said would be
linked to the quarry.

Marian Byers of De Luz, one of the members of SOS Hills, said
she was encouraged by the turnout.

"We're seeing a lot of people coming in and signing up," she
said.

And many of the people are new to the cause, Hamilton said.

"I don't know anyone in there," she added.

The annexation application was approved by the city late last
year after the Temecula City Council and the city Planning
Commission each staged public hearings that were attended by
hundreds of passionate residents.

Most of the people who spoke during the hearings focused on
their opposition to the quarry project.

The opponents said they were concerned about the potential for
dust from the mine traveling northeast with the prevailing winds
into the Redhawk neighborhood.

Granite officials and quarry supporters have said the project
will create 100 good-paying jobs and generate tax revenue. They
called the city's annexation attempt a blatant maneuver to stop the
project.

If annexation is approved by the commission, Granite's quarry
project, working its way through the county's planning department
pipeline, won't necessarily be snuffed, but it will be taken out of
the county's jurisdiction and placed within the city of Temecula's
purview. If annexation is rejected by the commission, the county's
Board of Supervisors will rule on Granite's quarry application.

Jerri Arganda of Rainbow said events such as Saturday's rally
are important to give people who don't understand the nuances of an
annexation application a chance to learn more about the issue and
argue their point intelligently.

And she said it's important they do that because Granite has
been consistent in its message, arguing that the quarry will help
lower air pollution in Riverside County by taking
pollution-belching trucks off the area's freeways and provide
quality aggregate building materials for infrastructure projects
and housing.